Illegitimate birth Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2000 05:46:58 -0700 (PDT) From: Rachael Diana <rdiana2@excite.com> To: DUNBARTONSHIRE-GENWEB-L@rootsweb.com Hi Rachael Diana, > I have a question and was wondering if someone had any insights. I > obtained a birth certificate from 1858. The child is listed as > illegitimate and only the mother's name appears-the child also has the > mother's surname. My question is did an illegitimate birth always > mean what it usually does-an out of wedlock birth? Yes. If the parents married after the birth there would be a note......Corrected Entry.... inserted into the the left margin of the childs b. cert. at a later date, which you would see on the cert. you have. > Or if perhaps the father died during his wife's pregnancy, would the > birth still be listed as illegitimate-even if they were legally > married? No. The b. cert. would say the child was the.... dau of the 'deceased' John Smith > I know that in the 1861 census the wife is listed as widowed so maybe > her husband died while she was pregnant. I am trying to get the death > certificate of the husband. Ah, the census, I think you are likely to get more correct informtion in a small place, village etc. where the enumerator was the local school teacher or such and would know the residents. In larger places people could say whatever they liked and it might not be checked. The 'widow' might also have married someone else between 1858 and 1861 who died before the census. Have you looked for a marriage, silly question, you probably have! A marriage for any 'Mary Smith' (hope that wasn't her name or you will have to plough through a lot of certs) in a likely place? Tried all kinds of different spellings of the names and the two names in places you might not expect to find the marriage etc? Marriage could have been at the home of a favourite relation who lived in a diff. town or village. The death cert. of a husband (or wife) who died from 1856 to abt 1860 would say 'married' but no name of the wife (husband) would be on the cert. so that is not likely to help you, unless he died at the place the widow was living in 1861 and you could tie in that address with the census. Or, if one of the widows relations, a brother, sister, her father, cousin etc. signed the death cert. and you are pretty sure of the family relationship. If you do find one, it will give the burial place of the deceased. Hope this gives you some ideas, regards, Maureen Kuzyk